Alan Shuptrine
Shuptrine’s Gallery & Gold Leaf Designs
Local artist Alan Shuptrine is preserving a lost art. “When I came home after college, my father, watercolor artist Hubert Shuptrine, needed a framer and gilder, and I needed a job. My uncle, James Shuptrine, who had been my father’s framer for many years, agreed to teach me all that he knew about gilding,” he shares. Gilding is a decorative technique of applying a thin gold coating to items such as frames, mirrors, and furniture. Shuptrine developed this skill in apprenticeships nationally and internationally but maintains that “the best teacher has been the time and practice over the last 38 years.”

His companies, Shuptrine’s Gallery and Gold Leaf Designs, offer a wide range of fine art restoration services in addition to gilding, which is a delicate process. “A sheet of 22 karat gold leaf is 1/250,000th of an inch thick, which is thinner than a human hair,” says Shuptrine. He carefully manipulates the leaf using a gilder’s tip – a wide, flat brush made of squirrel hair – and afterward, enjoys “stepping back and viewing a treasure that has been restored to its original splendor.”
Specializing in gilding has opened doors for significant restoration projects. In 2010, the New Orleans Museum of Art asked Shuptrine to provide on-site restoration of 446 gilded frames and religious icons damaged in Hurricane Katrina five years prior. “I was working on everything from Roman iconography dating from 1000 A.D. to the works of Modigliani, William Trost Richards, Monet, and Renoir. It was one of the most rewarding and in-depth restoration projects I have had the pleasure to experience,” he recalls.
Through his restoration work and instruction of other artists in gilding techniques, Shuptrine continues to champion its importance. He explains, “The repair and restoration of fine art and gilded antiques is essential to the preservation of our culture, our history, and our own personal story … A knowledge of these techniques is critical to properly preserve these items that are reflective of our past.”